Finishing work tomorrow until 26th March. One older cat having teeth out on Thursday. Major cleaning and sorting Thursday and Friday, plus final ring round of services like Sky. Some flighty cats going to Cats Protection Friday until Monday just to make things a little easier. Removals turning up Saturday to do most of the packing and loading the van. Sunday we clean in a minimalist house – not expecting much to be there except a bed and the WiFi router. Monday removals are back for the final lot, Cats Protection back to take remaining cats up to 11 in their van, and we take the 4 oldest in our car. Southend contingent start their lorry and car journey with belongings and 4 degus. And bingo – assuming no hold-ups with completion, we all move in together on Monday afternoon. Removals will dump numbered boxes in rooms. Big pot of tea will be needed, and reconstruct beds before collapsing. Tuesday will be food shopping and furniture ordering before we start properly unpacking, registering with doctor, council, new water supplier etc. WiFi should be plug and play from when we arrive. Then we look at the land and think ‘Wow – Spring is on its way; a seed spreadsheet is needed.’ The menfolk can start doing major stuff, while we women sort out food and arranging the kitchen, because we know exactly what our priority is. The kitchen will be the heart of our home, and what a kitchen it is – enough space to feed an army. The Southenders haven’t seen the house or land yet – it’s going to blow their minds. Smugness will ensue … and relief that we finally made it after 7 months.

Female, black and white, 3-4 years, seems to have been abused or beaten after attacking the small child she lived with. Currently being fostered in Wales and has some character issues, but will be transported down to East London over the next couple of weeks and all sorted medically, before she joins our other 15 cats in the van to Kent on moving day. Will spend a month or so in my new study on her own with lots of TLC, then will be given the choice of living in the house or taking up residence in the open-fronted haybarn – whichever she prefers.

Still haven’t exchanged, don’t know when it’s happening, and don’t know what the problem is because the buyer’s first solicitor isn’t talking to anyone including the buyer’s second solicitor or even the buyer himself. Maybe it’ll happen by the end of the week … who knows. We’ve gone beyond Kafka at this point. Nothing we can do to make it happen so just trying to stay calm. We may end up having to move the completion date back again from 12th March if we don’t exchange within the next 8 working days.

Guess what – we didn’t exchange. Buyer’s solicitor emailed late Thursday night with queries. We gave answers via our solicitor who couldn’t believe he’d left it that late. The buyer knew nothing about the queries and was happy to exchange today, but the only person authorised to release his deposit funds wasn’t in the office today (apparently senior solicitors play golf on Fridays). That’s the short version, without swearwords. Hoping to exchange Monday now. I’m almost beyond caring.

We were expected to suddenly confirm to our buyer’s solicitor that next door’s renovation work was building regs certified. How on earth were we supposed to do that? Fortunately I texted next door’s owner who emailed the certification over straightaway – thank you, Peta, that’s the second time you’ve saved our bacon.

Won’t bore you with the details, but a traumatic couple of days. Now hoping to exchange by the end of this Friday, and completion date is moved to 12th March. I’d quite like to move before I reach State pension age in 2034!